Zen said:
I've been playing through the SP campaign again, and reading a few impressions here, basically the odd 'textures' comment, has got me being very thorough in checking out the texture usage in the game.
The issue that leads people to say things like Killzone 2 has bad texturing is oftentimes Guerilla would only really make the max detail version of the texture viewable in a subtle way based upon angle of sight, or, if you were right up close to it because of the nature of the high detail coloring specifically not being made to look like melting walls.
It wasn't a technical limitation, as often times the high detail version would kick in from a decent distance, but you'd only really see that extra detail up close because of the coloring of filter or whatnot. There would be things that would just look low res, but would have a fairly detailed second layer applied up close, but most people probably wouldn't stop to look.
There is the odd, 'low res' texture here and there, but they're honestly less so than most FPS games on consoles. The worst level I've seen so far, in terms of actual 'low res' texture usage is Suljeva Village. It has a lot of 'low' detailed textures. Who knows how much of that was because of the environment sizes or the sand blasted nature of the environment, or production time.
I feel like taking some pictures to show what I'm talking about as my explanation is somewhat lacking.
Killzone 2 actually has very high texture detail though, no argument there.
I think you explained fine
And that's very interesting. I think also the simple fact that this game has a first person cover system means you will get up close to a lot of surfaces, which will make the low res textures that are present here and there on surfaces look a lot worse and become much more apparent.
I've also seen people comment about low res textures on the first level of the game especially, (mostly from people who clearly only ever played the demo
) but the textures aren't in any way low res in general. No more than any other FPS anyway. What the majority of the level is made out of tho is very bland, gray concrete, which can give the appearance that the textures are "low res" but they're really not.
One thing Guerrilla really did well was to accentuate the really great textures with their own specific light source. At numerous points in the game they just shine a light across a wall to show off an awesome texture and draw your view to the detail and away from the lower res ones. This was also missing on the first level due to it being relatively bright and sunny compared to the rest of the game. Same with the desert level you mentioned. So you're not gonna be drawn to the detailed ones as much on those levels.
Overall tho, I agree, the game had excellent textures in places and had very good consistency throughout the game for a console FPS.
In fact, a lot of people when discussing KZ2 visuals, forget to mention one of the most impressive aspects of the game, the online! (Think I remember mentioning this recently but here I go again
) There is nearly always a "downgrade" when it comes to online map detail but in KZ2 it maintains the quality of the single player. In fact it's arguably even more consistent. All the maps have great texture quality, and none of the maps are barren, there's a ton of
content, exceptional lighting and effects. I think it's the online maps where Guerrilla Games are really showing off and surpass any other console game with ease. They're way way more impressive than the Uncharted 2 maps for example, even when I think U2 tops KZ2 in terms of it's single player.
